Claim Academy

Claim Academy

About

About

Claim Academy is a 3-month developer coding and software training bootcamp in St. Louis that offers a 12-week classes in full stack Java and .Net. Claim Academy is accredited and approved by the State of Missouri Workforce Development to train IT professionals. Students can apply with with little to no programming experience, but should be prepared for an in-person or webcam interview, and should complete the Introduction to Ruby Course through Code School before the first day of class.

Throughout the three-month bootcamp, students complete pair programming work with mentors and instructors and produce a coding final project, which they present to potential employers and other interested parties on demo day. New classes are offered every 6 weeks.

Claim Academy reports a 95%+ placement rate. Graduates, on average, attain a starting salary of $58,000. Upon graduation, the team at Claim Academy helps place graduates in companies as Full Stack Software Developers in Java and .Net software development. Claim Academy graduates have been hired into major companies like Daughtery Business Solutions, Carfax, Technology Partners, Centene Corporation, Clearent, and OneSpace.

.NET/C# Bootcamp

Learn the tools and skills you'll need to be a professional .Net/C# programmer and developer. This full-time, 12-week course features daily and weekend lectures, intense homework and project workloads, hand-on experience with the latest technologies, and in-depth instruction on working in a collaborative development environment. Our project based approach creates a day where you experience pair programming, mentor led and instructional sessions. Azure, C # deploy your applications to the web and beyond. Join us!

Financing

Deposit

$500

Financing

Lending partners like Skill Fund and Pave offer financial loans and living expense loans. Go ahead and apply even before you start classes.

Shared Review

I am glad I was apart of the Jan 2017 Java Bootcamp. The instructors and staff all supported our growth and helped us so much. At Claim we learned a lot in the 3 months, it was challenging and very hard. But it was all worth it. On our final project, I really felt like I was a developer. I was amazed at what we all created. I meet some great people at Claim, and now I have a great support community that will help me in my career. Thanks Claim. I appreciate all you have done for me.

Claim Academy definitely lives up to its title of Bootcamp. Just like any boot camp if you are truely committed the benefits are abundant. The instructors are knowledgeable and really helpful and their team takes a genuine interest in helping find job placement.

Claim Academy’s staff takes a personal interest toward a successful outcome for all students enrolled in either their Java or C#/.Net cohorts - successful defined as making sure the students have a solid understanding of foundational coding principles, a good grasp on soft skills when it comes time for interviews and most importantly aligns their numerous employment contacts up with graduating students. It’s the deep concern for their students that I think sets Claim Academy at the top in their field.

Computer engineering had always been interesting to me, but I did not have a solid base on which to build solid and marketable skills. I had watched lectures online and picked up some things, but I fell into a problem. When you are learning something brand new, there will be gaps in your knowledge base and you will not know where those gaps exist. That’s where Claim Academy came in. They did a great job covering nearly all relevant topics for full-stack development - from the basics of class and methods to including implementing newer technologies like Angular into the curriculum. I do wish some topics were covered more in depth (ex: debugging), but in 12 weeks, it is amazing what they cover.

The thing that sticks out from the experience there is the people. They are fully invested in you and it shows. Ola’s passion and drive are contagious, Travis goes above and beyond to prepare you, and the instructors like Lamar, Sahara and Praneeth are knowledgeable, dedicated and ready to help you become great. The belief is if you succeed, they succeed.

There is a catch: You will have to work the hardest you ever have for 12 weeks. You will be challenged. There will be some easy days, and some days that are difficult. You will get out what you put in. That’s it.

That’s it. If you think about it, there is not a better way to change your career (and life) in 12 weeks.

I really enjoyed my time at Claim Academy. I actually left my job to make this commitment and prayed I wouldn’t regret. I don’t I’m so glad I made this commitment and followed through till the end. I would refer anyone that would want to Jumpstart there career in Software Development. Instructors are awesome it’s like having an extended family . THANKS CLAIM ACADEMY. The staff is amazing

I am a mother of 3 and going to Claim Academy helped to open new opportunities for me to explore in the technology industry that I wouldn't have before coming. I enjoyed my time at Claim and grew to love everyone I was placed with very much we became our own little family and I feel we will always be life long friends. Sahara is the best!!! LITERALLY THE BEST I felt I learned the most from her shes good at explaining the curriculum and is very patience. I was a little dissappointed when we switched instructors in the middle of our cohort who didn't happen to be the ideal teacher, I didn't learn much of anything at all when he taught but he ended up being let go and Sahara came in to help us. I also would have loved to see more employers on our Demo Day because that was the day we got to Shine and really let people know who you are and what you can do. Overall, I am proud of what I accomplished here and am excited to see where me and my friends end up.

You have to be dedicated! You need to be able to put your life on hold for 12 weeks! But at the end of 12 weeks, you will be trained and ready to begin a new career. You will gain knowledge in class, but you will need to do some self-directed learning on your own as well. If you are not truly dedicated, this experience may prove to be too difficult for you. If you don't ask for help (and you'll need some), this may prove too much for you. Coding is difficult! If it were easy, everyone would do it, and it would pay $10/hr. You have to focus! You have to study! You will also receive soft skills training and placement assistance. They're here to help you. You won't be babied, so don't expect that. I cannot say enough about the passion and dedication of the instructors. They want, more than anything, to see you succeed, and they make themselves available at all times of the day or night. So . . . are you ready?

Claim Academy provided a great opportunity for me to begin my career in software development. Twelve weeks ago I only knew some basic HTML, and now I am a full stack C#/.NET developer. During my enrollment I was able to hone both technical and soft skills that are essential for the job market. I recommend Claim Academy to anyone willing to dedicate twelve weeks to learning both front and back-end development. If you are interested in beginning a career as a software developer, do yourself a favor and check them out. I'm glad I did.

Great program. No complaints about my java instructors or support staff. Only problems I had were taken care of before I finished my course. Only things I saw that could have been better would be a clearer communications of expectations. A few times I came up shorter than I would have lked due to not knowing for sure what was expected of me. But, overall a great and worthwhile experience. Special mention to Sahara Datta for her help when I got behind on things. Lamar Myles for late night email hints to keep my project work going. And Travis Mattis for keeping me reminded that I needed to occassionaly stop coding to put in an application or two.

I have learned way more then what I knew when I first came. I have learned to set up a database and learned how to use MVC with it!
The Staff there worked with me one on one everyday until I understood what they where talking about. I love how they explain the work to me in
a way that I could do it!

I have received many phone calls and emails from recruiters setting me up for interviews. I can't wait for where this experience is going to lead me.
I have had mock interviews and I had a chance to present my project in front of employers, that was created when I attended the class. I learned how
to create a Capstone Project.

If I had the funding I would attend the Java Class, but I am already good with what I have already learned.

After working for several years in the public sector, I was wanting to make a career change and get into programming. By the time I started at Claim, I had completed a few low-level CS courses online and done a little bit of self study, and I had no idea what else I needed to know in order to be employable in the field.

Claim has a number of different instructors, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and they rotate during the bootcamp. If your cohort is lucky enough to have Lamar and/or Vinod, I can say that they are worth every dollar that Claim pays them. Sahara (the Java mentor) is fantastic as well, although she is also one of the C# instructors, so sometimes we had to share her with the C# cohort which wasn't ideal. There was one instructor who I did not think was very good, but last I heard, Claim was planning to revamp his part of the curriculum so his teaching methods may improve in future sessions. Overall, the instructors are very accomodating and helpful if you tell them what you are having trouble with.

Claim does a really good job of bringing in the higher-ups from some of the St. Louis-based companies to speak to students throughout the bootcamp. During my cohort, we had Express Scripts, Microsoft, and Daugherty come talk to us. Even if those companies aren't able to come to your demo day, Claim often has special application links that you can use to apply there.

Demo days can be hit or miss, depending on which companies decide to show up, so I wouldn't recommend relying solely upon the demo day for job prospects. There have been some demo days where graduates are offered jobs on the spot, but that was not my cohort's experience. Our demo day seemed to have mostly consulting firms and recruiters there. About a month before graduation, I started applying places on my own and working with recruiters, so I was lucky enough to have two offers in hand by the time I presented at demo day.

My biggest complaint about Claim is that I feel like we could have learned even more. While the program is said to be a "full-stack" program, I think it highly favors the back end. Not necessarily a huge issue, I just don't think it's super accurate to call it a full-stack program if you spend maybe a week total on the front end. My cohort never had a Saturday session, and I think that if all of the instruction time was fully-utilized, it would have been possible to fit more Angular 2 in there. So just be aware, if learning a JavaScript framework is important to you, you'll need to do a lot of self study in order to do that.

At the end of the day, I still learned a ton of stuff during my time at Claim Academy and I don't think I'd be where I am today without having attended. This bootcamp has the potential to change your life if you work really hard.

Claim Academy is good for networking with recruiters in the STL area who might be able to place you in a job after 12 weeks of coding practice. Of the three instructors who worked with my cohort, two are very passionate and informed. A third left a lot to be desired and ultimately was removed from our cohort.

I came to CA hoping to learn as much as possible according to the slightly exaggerated syllabus they offer, and already had a job lined up afterwards. I quickly realized that their core ranking is job placement (they boast 95% but wouldn't provide documentation to prove it) and that their emphasis wasn't on providing solid resources. Everyone seemed really strapped for time. Our mentor was the other cohort's instructor and by midway through the summer was teaching a second class too, our time with her, though valuable, was limited.

I have to emphasise how much those two instructors are passionate about what they do. I have reservations about the transparany and execution of the program, and ultimately for someone interested in learning more than finding a job I would not recommend the program. For someone interested more in finding a job than learning, it could be a valuable, yet expensive, recruitment source.

As someone with very little coding experience, Claim Academy was a great way to get a jump start in the IT field. My instructors, Lamar and Sahara, were extremely knowledgeable in Java, but were also effective in teaching us to program and build applications using Full Stack technology.

Through the concepts that I learned at Claim Academy, I was able to apply what I had learned, and by the end of the program had developed a complete a real-world business solutions application.

Claim's career advisor, Travis, also provided terrific career counseling and assistance throughout the program. He was always available, and very passionate about finding the right placements for each candidate.

If there were to suggest any improvements, it would be to provide additional mentorship support, as sometimes instructors seemed be stretched by the task of providing mentorship to all members of our class. In some cases, mentor support was not available due to instructors teaching other Cohort classes, which were concurrent to our mentorship sessions.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my experience at Claim, and am excited to take what I have learned as I embark upon a new IT career!

Claim Academy gave a new direction to a disabled veteran that needed a bit of guidance considering my circumstances. It was tough and requires a bit of tenacity, I was here 10 hours a day five days a week.

In addition to that I also supplemented my learning through other course work because the instructor is available for three hours of the day.

Furthermore the staff is here to help, but it depends on you to reach out and ask per the issue that you have. We are adults and claim expects you to act as such, that being said if you don't speak up they won't know there is an issue.

It can be done, a life changing opportunity that puts you in a position to support yourself and your family for a little under three months of hard work. It's worth it, but you get what you give...

Job placement services are working in my favor and there are a lot of chances and opportunities available and it's an ever growing market, with demo day I was able to network and receive a variety of offers.

I was part of the June 2017 Java class at Claim. I came to Claim with a little programming knowledge under my belt and they really helped me focus my prior knowledge as well as teach a lot of new material. The biggest strength of the program is they can tailor your learning to a set of skills that are currently in demand, the main focus of the program being to secure a position. The teachers and mentors were great. If you are considering coming to Claim, or any other bootcamp, I would guess, just know that it is more than a full time job itself. I spent on average somewhere around 10 hours every day of the three months working and learning. You should also be ready for a lot of self learning... while they do present the material and the syllabus that will lead to success, you have to lock in your understanding with your own research. Thanks Claim!

I was part of the April 2017 Java class. Class was hard and sometimes unorganized, but I did learn alot. You need to be willing to put in the work for this course to help you. I finished in July and am currently seeking employment as a Java developer. I feel like the teachers know their stuff but struggle at times to get through to some of the students. They switch teachers on you half way through the course and I don't think that helps the situation either. Still, I do feel like the teachers and student teachers try their best to help the students as much as they can. Thank you for all your help!

I loved the time I had at Claim Academy. I was challenged every day and was constantly pushed every minute, but I wouldn't change the experience for anything. All of the teachers and student mentors were incredibly patient (which is what I feared would NOT be the case prior to attending).

I learned a lot and I am greatly appreciative for the experience that I had.

Claim Academy is an intensive, full-time, java development class in St.Louis, MO. Over twelve weeks, you'll learn all the skills needed to begin a career as a software developer. Through hands-on projects, i was trained to build modern Java applications. Programming experience isn't required; you will need lots of tenacity and a passion for building cool stuff. Claim Academy has a network of companies that employee its graduates. I landed a job as a software developer on my graduation day at Claim Academy.

Claim Academy is the mother of Software BootCamps in the United States of America.

I became a .net C# sofware devoloper in Claim Academy in only 3 months. I got a really good experience with good teachers where they spend a lot of time with you making sure that you undertand . Claim Academy has a network of companies that employee its graduates. I really recommend C Academy.

I am an experienced Microsoft Certified Professional who joined the Claim Academy Java Bootcamp in Jan 2017. I was new to Java and this bootcamp helped me a lot in learning and practicing Java. The instructors were working professionals who gave us wonderful examples. They gave personal attention and we worked on many exercises and projects during the entire duration of this course.

The final project helped me a lot in practicing what I learned. The owner, Ola taught us how to give a professional presentation. During the Demo Day there were many professionals who attended our presentation. I was interviewed right away by one recruiter right after my demo was over.

No complaints. Just wish that class instructions were more structured. Glad I went through this bootcamp. Would highly recommend this bootcamp to professionals who are willing to work very hard.

I am glad I was apart of the Jan 2017 Java Bootcamp. The instructors and staff all supported our growth and helped us so much. At Claim we learned a lot in the 3 months, it was challenging and very hard. But it was all worth it. On our final project, I really felt like I was a developer. I was amazed at what we all created. I meet some great people at Claim, and now I have a great support community that will help me in my career. Thanks Claim. I appreciate all you have done for me.

I went into Claim with no coding background and came out with more than I thought possible. Ola believed in me, the insructors and the staff were dedicated, and my classmates helped to make my time here that much more awesome. This experience didn't come without some serious challanges and it was a roller coaster ride all the way to the end but I'm glad I took the leap to change my future and I have had no regrets in making this decision. I am much more confident because of it. My advice to anyone considering this bootcamp is to take the leap but as you are leaping make sure you do the work before the class even starts so that you are prepared for the amount of information this will be poured into you. It will be more than you think you can handle but it will all come together in the end if you just stick to it!

In the coding bootcamp industry in June 2018 the biggest trend we saw was coding bootcamps funneling grads into apprenticeships! We also saw two big fundraises by bootcamp-adjacent organizations, we heard about some interesting new legislation which could change how online bootcamps operate, and some bootcamp alumni launched exciting new careers. We also look at the effect bootcamps are having on tech industries in areas around the world, which bootcamps are offering scholarships to help women and underrepresented groups launch tech careers, and partnerships bootcamps are forming with big companies like Facebook. Read the blog post or listen to the podcast!

In our March 2018 technology bootcamp news roundup, we discuss all the industry news that we've been talking about at Course Report! We have some fun celebratory announcements, we looked at news about the positive impact bootcamps are having on individuals and companies, and the debate continued between coding bootcamps and computer science degrees. We heard about some great student experiences at bootcamp, some wonderful diversity initiatives, and new scholarship opportunities. Plus, a good number of new coding bootcamps and campuses launched in March. Read the roundup below or listen to the podcast!

It’s that time again! A time to reflect on the year that is coming to an end, and a time to plan for what the New Year has in store. While it may be easy to beat yourself up about certain unmet goals, one thing is for sure: you made it through another year! And we bet you accomplished more than you think. Maybe you finished your first Codecademy class, made a 30-day Github commit streak, or maybe you even took a bootcamp prep course – so let’s cheers to that! But if learning to code is still at the top of your Resolutions List, then taking the plunge into a coding bootcamp may be the best way to officially cross it off. We’ve compiled a list of stellar schools offering full-time, part-time, and online courses with start dates at the top of the year. Five of these bootcamps even have scholarship money ready to dish out to aspiring coders like you.

This is a cost comparison of full stack (front end and back end) in-person (on-site) immersive bootcamps that are nine weeks or longer, and many of them also include extra remote pre-work study. We have chosen courses which we think are comparable in course content – they all teach HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, plus back end languages or frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Python, Angular, and Node.js. All schools listed here have at least one campus in the USA. To find out more about each bootcamp or read reviews, click on the links below to see their detailed Course Report pages.

Alex is the Director of Operations at Claim Academy in St. Louis, and Arjun worked at Starter League in Chicago before moving to Claim to work on their curriculum. Arjun and Alex tell us about the importance of building a developer community in St. Louis, the rising interest in QE and QA classes, the makeup of their ideal student, and their outreach in the wake of Ferguson.

Arjun, tell us about your background.

Arjun: Before Claim, I worked at Starter League and did partnership work for them. A lot of the work I did was helping other organizations set up coding programs. We worked with Chicago Public Schools as well as some charter schools, private institutions, and universities in the area.

That was a really great transition into the work that I’m doing here with ClaimSTL; making sure we get high quality instructors, a good curriculum, and structure for our classes so that students have a solid, engaging experience all around.

Since Claim Academy is set in the Claim coworking space, is the motivation for Claim Academy to drive developers into those startups or to get them into the St. Louis community?

Alex: I think it’s inevitable that there will be connections between the co-working space and the school. I think the main driver for Claim Academy was to jump start the St. Louis development community. There’s a lot of demand for developers.

The short term goal is to help close that gap a little bit and increase the supply of potential developers to entry level positions. The longer term goal is to build up the St. Louis community and be one of the pillars of the development community in the city.

What are the types of companies in St. Louis that are hiring for programmers? Is it startups or big enterprises?

Arjun: The answer is both. We’ve seen interest from startups and lots of interest from a lot of the larger companies that have a base here in St. Louis looking to train those entry level programmers that they can then turn into full level programmers and developers at their particular company. We’ve also gotten interest from one or two people looking for technical co-founders or small development project work that’s just a one-off project.

We have a great startup scene here in St. Louis that really needs developers but can’t afford them at the rate that the larger companies can pay. And of course the larger companies need more entry level workers that they could train in their own companies rather than hiring them out from outside the city; they always prefer to hire local too.

It looks like Claim STL is offering a lot of different bootcamps: Java, Ruby, .NET, QA.

Arjun: A lot of the classes are in languages and topics demanded by local businesses. We had someone come in specifically and ask for a QE (Quality Engineering) class that was geared not just towards quality assurance but also quality engineering; not to mention the specific Java or .Net classes that we think are integral to a successful career. Each of these bootcamps are 12 weeks long.

Which language will you be focusing on in your first bootcamp?

Alex: At the moment, we are farthest along with the QE Bootcamp. That one is on schedule to start in January because of space requirements – we’re still renovating the space here at Claim. We’re probably going to start our Java and .Net classes in February, then the next ones we’ll add will be Ruby and Javascript but those are a little more advanced.

Which class are you getting most interest from?

Arjun: Right now that would be QE. The way we’ve been developing it at the moment is by focusing on enterprise partnerships, so we ask businesses what kind of classes they need and QE was the first one that popped up. We just expected that there would be more interest in Ruby and Java from an individual level.

Can you tell us about the curriculum for that QE Class?

Alex: We’re still working with our instructors to flesh out a curriculum. Sometimes QA or QE can be written off as the “boring testing side” to tell programmers what they’re doing wrong. But we like to think about it as a full-fledged career opportunity in its own right. A developer or programmer who might fit a QE or a QA position would be more of a broader thinker. Instead of thinking about small systems, they would think about how every piece fits together as a whole. They’ll probably also have a stronger interest in working with people than the average developer position, so there’s more soft skills. A solid QA engineer would need to be able to talk to developers, talk to users, talk to managers and integrate all of their needs, and make sure that there’s no gaps throughout the entire process.

The curriculum will focus on smaller case studies as well as developing a general philosophy of quality assurance that really takes students across industries – because QA can be really different in the aircraft industry vs. software industry. Quality engineers will also need to have some working knowledge of programming, so basic Java will also be woven throughout the course.

Are you developing the curriculum by working backwards based on what the local companies say that they need in an employee?

Alex: It’s probably a mix of that as well as what our instructors think is important based on their experience as well as what the local market is actually looking for. We combine both of those pieces into a beginner-friendly format that students without much technical background can succeed in.

Can you tell us a little bit about the instructors?

Alex: We don’t have the instructors finalized right now, but I can tell you that we’re really excited, especially for QA, about the instructors we’ve got lined up.

Will the QA class be project-based? Will students be working on projects as they learn or will it be more lecture-based?

Arjun: Absolutely. At this point, it’s pretty clear that most people learn best by doing as opposed to sitting and listening. So while there definitely will be lecture components, the types of lectures we would like to have are not necessarily 60-minute blocks where students are watching someone talk at them. We’ll give interactive “type-alongs” as well as lecture combined with lab where you learn about the topic and put it into practice right away with dynamic, interactive questions throughout. Then we’ll have more focused labs to supplement the lectures so student can really explore the material at their own pace.

Alex: It’s important to us in doing this curriculum that everyone leave our classes with some real, tangible final projects. We’re in the process too, of getting smaller and medium-sized businesses to offer a project for students as that final project so by the time they actually leave our program, they will have worked on things that are applicable to the real world.

Do you have formalized hiring partners set up?

Arjun: We have a variety of relationships with access to our students and candidates; everything from companies offering scholarship opportunities during the initial interview process to offering projects during the class itself. Other companies will have access at the end of the process to our students at the job fair. Then of course, any company after that job fair can hire our students.

Do you imagine that once you start the Ruby course that you would get applicants who are maybe working to build their own startup or be a technical co-founder?

Alex: Oh, absolutely. The physical space we’re teaching in is Claim, which is a collaborative workspace. I can absolutely see someone who is one of our Claim members deciding they want to learn Ruby, jumping in for eight weeks with the intent of being a technical cofounder of a smaller startup.

Do you all have an idea yet of the ideal student for Claim for this first course? Do you have technical requirements?

Arjun: I think the eventual goal is to have the course open to students regardless of background. But for our first cohort the ideal students will be college grads or non-grads with some technical experience. It could be either math or engineering, one of the sciences. Someone who is transitioning into a career in development but doesn’t necessarily have full experience in programming just yet.

What else are you looking for aside from technical background? What else do you look for in the interview process?

Arjun: It’s a quality that is hard to quantify, but students that really want it are the ones that are going to succeed. When I was working at Starter League I would often find that students with less technical experience who just really wanted to get an app built and were really passionate about their projects ended up doing the best after the class ended.

It wasn’t even necessarily that they did really well by the end of the class, but if you looked at them two, three, four months later the ones who really wanted it at the beginning kept up the momentum.

That’s really the kind of student we’re looking for; a student who is interested in development and cares about it and is willing to put in time to learn independently. All of these bootcamps are really good at getting students from “zero to one” but they get themselves from one to five or however far they want to go. Development isn’t something that’s static. You need to keep learning once you’re done. So the student that is able to keep learning afterward is the ideal student for us.

Is there anything else that you wanted to add about Claim Academy or bootcamps in general?

Arjun: One big thing is that at Claim, I think it’s really important to reduce and lower restrictions for students. We want to make it really easy for students to make the decision to come work with us, which is why we take a heavy scholarship and financial support approach. We just want to lower the financial barrier as much as possible.

How much does the class cost right now?

Arjun: The 12-week program is $8,000

Are you doing anything to get specifically women and other underrepresented minorities involved with Claim Academy?

Arjun: One of the consequences of what’s been happening in Ferguson, Missouri is all of these initiatives like Ferguson 1000 Jobs, Hands Up United, and other initiatives are pouring into Ferguson and there’s actually a lot of great ideas on how to provide for that community through jobs or training or even a bootcamps like ours. So we’re working with Ferguson 1000 Jobs to potentially provide some training. We’re not just doing minority outreach, but also other estranged sub-communities.